Roughly two-thirds of the population is Arab, and most are native-born Bahrainis, but some are Palestinians, Omanis, or Saudis. Foreign-born inhabitants, comprising more than one-third of the population, are mostly from Iran, India, Pakistan, Britain, and the United States. About three-fifths of the labour force is foreign.

Languages

Arabic is the official language of Bahrain. English is widely used, however, and is a compulsory second language at all schools. Persian is also common, although it is spoken mostly in the home. A number of other languages are spoken among expatriates in Bahrain, including Urdu, Hindi, and Tagalog.

Religion

The population is more than four-fifths Muslim and includes both the Sunni and Shīʿite sects, with the latter in the majority. The ruling family and many of the wealthier and more influential Bahrainis are Sunni, and this difference has been an underlying cause of local tension, particularly during and after the Iran-Iraq War (1980–901980–88). Christians constitute about half of the remaining one-fifth of the population, with the rest consisting of Jews, Hindus, and Bahāʾīs.

Settlement patterns

The majority of the population now dwells in towns, but in the north and northwest of the main island, where irrigation has long been carried out using artesian water, there are numerous small villages and isolated dwellings where horticulture is the way of life. This area has an aspect of great fertility, which contrasts starkly with the bare desert appearance of much of the country. Villages consist, for the most part, of substantial flat-roofed houses built of stone or concrete. Some of the temporary settlements of fishermen and the poor are still constructed of barasti (branches of the date palm). There is little permanent settlement either in the southern half of Bahrain Island or on the smaller islands.

More than one-third of the population lives in the two principal cities, Manama and Al-Muḥarraq. Manama, with its port of Mīnāʾ Salmān, is the largest city and contains the main government offices, the business and financial district, many large hotels, Western-style shops, and a traditional Arab souk (market). It has a distinctly modern appearance as compared with Al-Muḥarraq, which is densely settled and has many narrow, winding streets. Other major settlements are ʿAwālī, near the centre of Bahrain Island, built largely for expatriate employees of the Bahrain Petroleum Company B.S.C. (Bapco); Madīnat ʿĪsā (Isa Town), a community established by the government in 1968; the sizable settlements of Al-Rifāʿ al-Shamālī (North Rifāʿ), Al-Rifāʿ al-Sharqī (East Rifāʿ), and Al-Rifāʿ al-Gharbī (West Rifāʿ); and Madīnat Ḥamad, completed in 1984.

Demographic trends

The population of Bahrain has been steadily growing, increasing almost 2 percent a year. Life expectancy is high, with males living on average to about 71 and females to 76. The death rate is well below the world average, and the major causes of death are diseases of the circulatory or respiratory system and cancer. More than one-fourth of the population is under the age of 15.